BREDL has drafted a resolution template calling for full disclosure of chemicals to be used, stored, and transported at fracking sites, and we hope that groups across the state will adopt this resolution so that it can be presented to local governments in with support from their respective communities. The resolution is designed to be passed among organizations and local governments who can write in their own names and official status. We are asking that local groups adopt and share the resolution widely as an organizing tool in your communities.

BREDL Timeline

BREDL Reflections

BREDL Merchandise

BREDL 30th Anniversary Merchandise is now available online at BREDL Shop

Coal Ash Disposition
The Alternative for North Carolina

BREDL's technical report which details the dangers of landfilling coal ash and recommends the proven saltstone technology for the coal ash at Duke Energy's fourteen power plants. The report entitled "Coal Ash Disposition: The Alternative for North Carolina," describes the saltstone technology which would encase the coal ash waste and isolate the toxins from the soil, air and water.

Hydrofracking: No Trespassing No Seismic Testing Sign to post on your property

What's All The Fuss About Fracking?

This BREDL report highlights the main issues with hydrofracking. Updated December 2013

League Fund

Honors Founder

The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League Board of Directors has recently approved the establishment of a fund to honor the work of Janet Marsh Zeller, who founded the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League and served as its executive director for 28 years.
Since July 2012, Janet has acted as a consultant to the BREDL Board Executive Committee.
The honorary fund is a current fund (as opposed to an endowment fund) which will support the ongoing mission of the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League.
It will be a continuing fund, with individual gifts accepted throughout the year. All donations to BREDL are tax-deductible.

Coal Ash

Coal Ash

Mar. 10, 2015: Raleigh- Joined by Lee and Chatham County residents, Blue Ridge Environmental
Defense League (BREDL) announced an ad campaign calling on the Governor to stop Duke
Energy’s plan to dump millions of tons of dangerous coal ash into clay mines located in Lee and
Chatham counties. The ads, featuring children singing "Ashes, ashes, we all fall down" will run
over the next two weeks on News Radio WPTF, 680 AM.

Safeguard America's Resources

BREDL comments on Atlantic Coast Pipeline EIS

Mar. 9, 2015: The Atlantic Coast Pipeline represents a massive assault on the environment and the communities along the proposed routes. Moreover, the impacts of extraction, transport and combustion of the fossil fuel natural gas would have worldwide impact. Once the impacts are weighed, we believe the no action alternative—that is, the denial of the certificate of convenience and public necessity—will be the agency’s only recourse.

Plant Vogtle

BREDL comments on Plant Vogtle NPDES permit

March 3, 2015: Southern Company seeks a permit to discharge heated radioactive water from Plant Vogtle into the Savannah River. BREDL has identified two issues of major concern: 1) The draft permit contains no effective heat discharge limits, and 2) The draft permit would allow 630 Curies of radioactivity to be discharged into the Savannah River annually. Public comment deadline in March 20, 2015. Call us to find out more.

Safeguard America's Resources

Safeguard America's Resources

Southern Community Groups Call for the Right to Say No to Natural Gas Facilities
Campaign to Safeguard America’s Resources

Feb. 12, 2015: Today community groups in Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia called for the establishment of local veto power over natural gas extraction, transport and use. At rallies, marches and other public events extending from Floyd, Virginia, across North Carolina to Valdosta, Georgia, people joined in a chorus of protests against pipelines, compressor stations, power plants, hydrofracking wells and waste dumps and for the restoration of property rights and local control over energy policy in the Southeast.

FORESTS - MOUNTAIN VALLEY PIPELINE

Feb. 7, 2015: BREDL opposes this temporary special use permit. Although the US Forest Service avers that a complete inventory of forest flora and fauna needs to be completed for this project, we believe that nothing good can come of allowing this pipeline to cross national forest lands. Moreover, this “temporary” permit is far from temporary.

Nuclear - WS Lee, North Anna

BREDL Petitions to Supplement Reactor Environmental Impact Statements

Jan. 28, 2015: Contrary to federal law, the required environmental reviews for nuclear power stations proposed by Dominion in Louisa, VA, Duke Energy in Gaffney, SC and a half dozen others omit any reference to the NRC’s recently issued irradiated nuclear fuel storage analysis. Instead, they are directed to environmental analyses that have been outdated; or worse, vacated by the U.S. Court of Appeals for failure to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act. Our petitions call for a full environmental assessment of the safety and public health risks of long term storage at the reactor sites.

Coal Ash

Another North Carolina County Targeted for Coal Ash Disposal
Anson County Identified in Duke Energy Excavation Plan

Jan. 14, 2015: Today the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League released new information pointing to a commercial landfill in Anson County for coal ash disposal. The information, obtained from Duke Energy's Riverbend and Sutton power plant coal ash excavation plans, states that "In the event the structural fill options are not available in Lee or Chatham County, the Anson County Landfill, a permitted solid waste landfill, has been identified as the alternate location." The plan indicates that coal ash would be transported from the power plants to the landfill by rail.

Jan. 9, 2015: Raleigh- Today the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League revealed the locations of clay mines across North Carolina which could be targeted for coal ash disposal if abandoned clay mine dumping is approved by the state.
The League generated a map showing nearly a hundred active and inactive clay mines located in over twenty counties, extending from Henderson County in the west to Dare County in the east with many in the piedmont.

Nuclear

Group Launches Radiation Protection Project

Jan. 6, 2015: Today at a press conference in Augusta, a group launched a new program to protect residents from nuclear power plant accidents. The group, Concerned Citizens of Shell Bluff, will be meeting with residents of Augusta, Waynesboro and nearby communities within the emergency zone around the Plant Vogtle nuclear power station. The project centers on one of the most dangerous pollutants, radioactive iodine, which can affect the thyroid gland.

Coal Ash

US EPA Fails Communities with Coal Ash Recommendations

Forests | Fracking

League Calls for Ban on Fracking in Public Forests

Jan. 5, 2015: Today in a letter to the United States Forests Service, The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League (BREDL) released a statement calling for a ban on all hydraulic fracturing and oil and gas development activities in national forests, as well as restricted use of timber harvest and production, chemical treatment, and prescribed burning, with special protections for designated Wilderness Areas. The statement by BREDL’s Executive Director, Lou Zeller, was submitted to the Forest Supervisor for the National Forests of North Carolina, Kristin Bail, in response to the public comment period for the Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests 15 Year Plan Draft Revision. The final plan will determine the standards, outcomes and desired conditions for Nantahala and Pisgah Forests, which together span over one million acres in western NC along the Appalachian Mountains in eighteen counties.

Safeguard America's Resources

The League files motion to intervene in Sabal Trail natural gas pipeline

On December 24th the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League filed a motion to intervene in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s proceeding for the proposed Sabal Trail natural gas pipeline. The project would cut a 460 mile swath across Alabama, Georgia, and Florida and install five huge gas-burning, internal combustion compressor stations totaling over 200,000 horsepower. Explaining the League’s opposition to the project, Executive Director, Lou Zeller, said, “Natural gas compressors emit huge amounts of air pollution including ozone-forming nitrogen oxides, toxic formaldehyde and global warming greenhouse gas. The Sabal Trail project would not serve the residents of Alabama, Georgia and Florida nor would it benefit the economy of the Southeast.” The League has members and active chapters in Alabama and Georgia and a chapter situated right on the pipeline route through Valdosta, Georgia: Wiregrass Activists for Clean Energy.

What if Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League earned a donation every time you searched the Internet? Or how about if a percentage of every purchase you made online went to support our cause?
Well, now it can!

Can shopping save the world? The Story of Change urges viewers to put down their credit cards and start exercising their citizen muscles to build a more sustainable, just and fulfilling world.
View the video.

BREDL Partnerswith TERC

TERC is partnering with environmental action groups in twelve states to advance the quantitative literacy skills needed to understand and solve pressing environmental problems.

- A Tale of Three New Chapters, Organizing Against Pipelines in VA by Mara Robbins
- My story - a typical landowner in Franklin County by Natasha Laity-Snyder
- Battlelines Shift, the War Goes On by Fred First
- The Beginning of a New Era by Michael G. Noll
- Concerned Citizens of Shell Bluff Launch First Potassium Iodide Workshop by Rev. Charles Utley
- BREDL 2014 Highlights Webstats
- Nuclear Campaign Updates
- How Can BREDL Support My Community? Letter from an ELEE Member by Terica Luxton

On Feb. 12, 2015, community groups in Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia called for the establishment of local veto power over natural gas extraction, transport and use. At rallies, marches and other public events extending from Floyd, Virginia, across North Carolina to Valdosta, Georgia, people joined in a chorus of protests against pipelines, compressor stations, power plants, hydrofracking wells and waste dumps and for the restoration of property rights and local control over energy policy in the Southeast.